The Glade 4.0

He invoked Executive Privilege (which doesn't exist in the Constitution) over the documents holder was about to get cited for contempt for not handing over supeaned documents.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Read this earlier. Not surprised. This guy is corrupt beyond belief. Still not much of a mention of the whole FF thing in the MSM. But hey...reporter tries to ask Obama a question about another possible illegal action...the MSM is falling all over themselves trying to condemn him.

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

Also...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... pwYh9TD6Nc

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

I don't want to presume anything so I will flat-out ask: Did you have a problem with Bush using Executive Privilege? If I recall the liberals at the time did.

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This goes way beyond "Bush did it too." A Border Patrol agent and an ICE agent are dead as a result of this bungled operation. We'll never know how many Mexicans have died because of this as well. People need to be held responsible.

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The Dude abides.

I'm sure it does. Basically, you're saying, "Nobody died when Clinton lied." I wonder if anyone died on Bush's watch?

This is American politics in a nutshell, and the reason why my fellow countrymen drive me batshit. People are upset about the hypocrisy, but instead of demanding a real change, they just insist it was better when the other color was in charge.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Who exactly are you directing this comment toward? If me, you're making an argument for me that I don't espouse. Executive privilege is a crock. Nobody is above the law - no matter what letter is next to their name.

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The Dude abides.

Seems like a bad decision on the Presidents part, now there is no way to distance himself from Fast and Furiose, the scandal is his with no deniability. Unless there was something incriminating/dirty in the stuff the house wanted that would have implemented him, then he has nothing to loose.

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"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."
— Alan Moore

If your "fellow countrymen" are driving you batshit, you think entirely too much of yourself. You are not any smarter than they are. "Colors" are not the problem. The problem is that politicians are human, generally at least reasonably smart, but subject to all the foibles of any other human being. Your standards are too high. There will always be corruption among political leaders just like there will always be corruption in every walk of life. You have to deal with individual instances as they come.

Your choices are democracy/republic with fallible humans, dictatorship of some form or other with fallible humans, or chaos. Good luck with that last one.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

No one in the arena will make any sort of political hay about it because the Republicans are winning the masses over by banging on nothing but the economy drum, and you don't change your strategy when you're winning. This gets swept away as an aside.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

In other news, the house votes to hold Eric Holder in comtempt of congress. 17 Dems vote along with the Pubs.

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

It's just stupid grandstanding. The Dept of Justice is going to ignore the contempt charge, just like Bush's Dept of Justice did when the Democratic Congress held his officials in contempt.

Nope, this one has legs I believe. Issa will see this one through.

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

Haven't read this yet, but Fortune did a big write-up of Fast and Furious. My impression is that some folks here won't like its conclusions, but it's getting a fair bit of attention and is supposedly fairly comprehensive, so figured I'd post it here even though I can't really comment on it yet.

Money quote (bolding mine):



That said, I've really had it with Obama (and Bush Jr., Clinton, Bush Sr., Reagan, etc.) claiming Executive Privilege for so many things. Congress and, if necessary, SCOTUS, really need to push back on that ****.

Does Screeling know his Sig broke last yearish?

I read the Fortune article. It was rather damaging to Issa's case.

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I'm not so sure. If anything, the article was further evidence that the records need to be released so that the fault can be laid at the proper people.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Do they mention at all that most of the buyers were actually paid FBI informants? If not I would not consider it comprehensive in the least.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I thought the only docs withheld were for active investigations, which would be jeopardized if they were leaked?

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When he's underwater does he get wet? Or does the water get him instead?

Also, Issa has admitted that they have no evidence that the WH is involved in any kind of cover up:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/2ch ... _blog.html

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When he's underwater does he get wet? Or does the water get him instead?

It's hard to have evidence of anything when you don't have all the facts

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

This.


I think Obama finally got involved because there is more proof that they intentionally let these guns walk so they could push for more gun control here in the US.

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

Issa never stated that the WH was involved. The problem is the documents that they provided were so incredibly redacted (including several pages with the entire page blacked out) were useless and the request for other related material has never ever ever been answered.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

The argument that they don't need the documents because there's no evidence of WH involvement or a coverup is equivalent to suggesting to a police detective that he stop looking for evidence in a murder because he doesn't have any evidence.

We know a crime was committed. We know an investigation was bungled, badly. This justifies an investigation.

How that investigation plays out, and what specific bits of information is actually needed by the investigators is not really for me to say. But it appears reasonable to request documentation from those in charge of the bungled investigation and those in charge of the men murdered.

Is it a fishing exercise? Sure. But by that token so is going to a crime scene and looking around. Inappropriate fishing is when there's no evidence or very very limited evidence that a crime occurred, and you're looking for a crime, rather than evidence of a known crime.

But it started in 2006.

This is where I think the whole thing crosses into nutty conspiracy theory territory.